


I'm Not Sure This is Actually a Coffee Shop

by bendingsignpost



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Caffeine Addiction, Gen, Oblivious Bilbo, Trope Subversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 07:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3166745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingsignpost/pseuds/bendingsignpost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With bleary eyes, Bilbo pushed open the heavy wooden door and shuffled into the mirky dimness of the first coffee shop he saw. Which was the one on lower 14th Street. No, not the one with the absurd line and people shivering at the outdoor tables, even at this time of year. Not the cramped Starbucks either, or the other, slightly less cramped Starbucks.</p><p>The other one.</p><p>Yes. That one.</p><p>Such was the degree of Bilbo’s caffeine deprivation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Sure This is Actually a Coffee Shop

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anon prompt on tumblr: 
> 
> "I have a weakness for AUs that aren't what they seem, and I've had an idea kicking around my head if you'd like to have it! Coffee Shop AU that isn't actually a Coffee Shop AU. The coffee shop is a front for the "terrorist" organization of Dwarves out to reclaim Erebor. Bilbo is an actual customer mistaken for an ally. Probably Gandalf's fault."
> 
> That wasn't quite the direction I took it, but man, writing horrible coffee shops is _fun_. Complete as it is.

With bleary eyes, Bilbo pushed open the heavy wooden door and shuffled into the mirky dimness of the first coffee shop he saw. Which was the one on lower 14th Street. No, not the one with the absurd line and people shivering at the outdoor tables, even at this time of year. Not the cramped Starbucks either, or the other, slightly less cramped Starbucks.

The other one.

Yes. That one.

Such was the degree of Bilbo’s caffeine deprivation. 

The windows were streaky, a third of the lights burnt out, and there was, most importantly of all, no chance in hell of a line. He would gladly sit in one of the hard, cushion-less chairs at a sticky table, if it meant a hot drink and a chance to warm his feet. And then he could sort out what to do with the rest of this dreary day. Even if it meant being stared at by the fellow behind the counter.

"Excuse me? Hello?" 

The man looked up from his phone and grunted. The word “barista” summoned itself from the back of Bilbo’s mind, took in the sight of the man’s immense crossed arms, tattoos and general demeanor, and darted away in terror. In Bilbo’s experience, baristas generally did not bring to mind anthropomorphic slabs of granite looking for a bar fight.

"Excuse me," Bilbo repeated. "Good morning." Though his voice was small, it was still undoubtedly larger than Bilbo himself. And it shook a great deal less. Blast this chill. He wiggled his frozen toes and stuck his hands deeper into his pockets. "Could I, um."

The vaguely legible menu had been smudged, probably by employees leaning against the chalkboard. It was, in fact, positioned directly behind the unblinking giant at the counter, and leaning in either direction did Bilbo no good at all. The man didn’t move, save to raise an eyebrow.

Bugger this. “Dark roast, biggest size you have, with two shots of espresso please.”

The man turned his head and barked, “Dori! Deal with this!”

Another man, a much smaller, friendlier looking man, bustled out from the back and clapped his hands together. “Hello! Thank you, Dwalin, I’ve got it.” 

Dwalin disappeared into the back of the shop without another word, which didn’t seem to surprise Dori in the slightest. “Can’t stand counter duty, that one,” Dori explained, giving an appreciative look at Bilbo’s scarf. Thankfully, he seemed to recognize that Bilbo was far too exhausted for an actual flirt. Not Bilbo’s type anyway. “What’ll you be having?”

Once Dori engaged Bilbo in conversation, he seemed set to keep him there. Well-aware that his caffeine intake was in Dori’s hands, Bilbo mustered as much polite cheeriness as he could. No, he wasn’t usually the sort to leave home without at least one cup of the brew, but today had been a bit of an odd day. Job interview, Bilbo explained, and he’d been afraid he might be late. He’d dashed out of the house still in his birkenstocks and not even noticed until he stepped in a sloppy puddle of slush. Hadn’t so much as taken a scarf!

"Did you get it around here?" Dori said. 

"What?" asked Bilbo.

"Your scarf."

Bilbo touched the cloth around his neck in surprise. He looked down at the silver-grey softness and felt his memories slide and shuffle in the attempt to place it. When could he have…? He took off his coat while he was waiting for Dr Stormcrow, and he’d hung it on the coat rack. Had the scarf already been there? The doctor had certainly been in, even if the rude arse had rescheduled at the last moment. Someone clearly didn’t need his firewall repaired as quickly as he said he did.

"I stole it," Bilbo said. 

Dori smiled, as if at a joke. Yes, definitely a joke, unless Bilbo was accidentally flirting again, which was a very real danger. “A job interview for a thief, then,” Dori said, and even to Bilbo’s oblivious ears, that can’t be anything other than flirting.

"Burglar," Bilbo corrected, possibly even more pedantic than usual. Dori was not very quick when it came to drinks, and at this rate, a long line would have been a shorter wait. "It’s burglary when you take it from a building. I didn’t take it off Gandalf Stormcrow himself." He managed to keep from slapping himself in the forehead, but Dori didn’t seem put off in the slightest. If anything, Dori’s smile widened. 

"Anyway," Bilbo said, clearing his throat, "that’s hardly my profession."

"Just for one job interview, then?" Dori asked. He leaned forward a fair bit, and he was no longer making Bilbo’s drink. He was holding it, he was not handing it over, and, blast, it was in an actual mug, not a cup to go. His feet had warmed up all they needed to by this point, thank you.

"Well, special cases, exceptions, you know," he answered, eyes on the mug.

"Oh, I do indeed." With that, Dori proceeded to take Bilbo’s coffee even further away from him. He walked around the counter and to the doorway of a second sitting room. Though the door was propped open, the area was hardly any more inviting than the front of the coffee house.

"The lights actually work in here," Dori said. "Much better chairs, too. Where’d you like to sit?"

Bilbo’s manners moved his body for him, or perhaps it was the sheer need for caffeine. Whatever the case might have been, Bilbo did indeed follow Dori into the room, and he did indeed sit. His feet stuck to something on the floor, and the table wobbled. These details registered only vaguely until the mug was between his hands, scalding and perfect. 

"What do I owe you?" Bilbo asked. 

"It’s on the house," Dori said, and he winked. He winked.

Bilbo looked pointedly down into rising steam and said as final a “thank you” as he ever had in his life. 

To Bilbo’s great surprise, Dori left him with nothing more than a cheerful “You’re quite welcome!” Not even asking for a name, let alone his phone number. Perhaps he’d been mistaken about the flirting?

Bilbo did the only reasonable thing there was to be done, and set about drowning his muddled confusion in admittedly terrible coffee. The taste hardly registered.

The door closing, on the other hand, did. 

Bilbo looked up. A bearded tower of a man looked down. 

"Hello," said Bilbo.

"So you’re the burglar," the man rumbled. 

Bilbo blinks a bit before realizing the man expects some sort of response. “Is Dori telling everyone?” 

"Only those who matter." Without the even the pretense of an invitation, the man sits down across from him. Hard blue eyes study the stolen scarf. "Tell me, what do you know of the position?"

"Sorry?"

"The job." He nods toward the scarf. "Gandalf said he would leave a sign."

"Am I interviewing with you, then?" Bilbo asks, not quite sure the coffee was having any effect. How could the one follow the other? Still, Bilbo kept his face schooled.

"I am the employer," said the man, which was certainly news to Bilbo. "What do you know of the task at hand?"

"I know that I can do it," Bilbo answered without hesitation. "I’m sorry, but I don’t have a hard copy of my CV on me." After all, anyone seeking to hire a computer security specialist had to have a computer in the first place.

The stern man’s smile seemed to surprise the man as much as it did Bilbo. “I did not expect you to carry one. Your name, if you will give it?”

"Bilbo Baggins."

"How many security breaches do you have under that belt of yours?"

"I can’t tell you that. I can tell you that finding holes is the easier part, and I’m good enough to repair them."

"And create them?"

Bilbo sat up a touch straighter. “I can build from the ground up, if I need to.”

"You would have until October," the man said. 

"What happens in October?"

Blue eyes gleam. “We take back Erebor.”

"As in, the corporation," Bilbo half-said, half-asked. Take back? “That Erebor? With the rune logo and everything.”

"Yes," said the man. "Did Gandalf not warn you of the scale?"

"What is it, exactly, that you want me to do before October?"

"I need you to burgle, Burglar." At a sound from the front, the man turned abruptly, and his hand moved to a spot in his jacket that Bilbo did not like. It was not the sort of spot where one carries, say, a pen. 

Through the door, there came the vague noise of someone attempting to order a coffee, and the man rose from the table. “Come with me,” he said. Still clutching his mug, Bilbo obeyed. He followed through a door into the little kitchen in the back (because all kitchens, save his mother’s, would forever be little kitchens to him), and then he followed to what ought to have been a pantry.

It was a staircase. Going down. The man stood behind him. “That way,” he prompted, and there was something about an impatient man with, possibly, a gun that compelled the feet to move. 

The man closed the door behind them, herded Bilbo down the stairs, and punched in a security code for the door down there. Bilbo walked inside. The man closed the second door behind them, and the men inside the room looked up from their computer screens. 

"Gandalf’s hacker," the man announces to the room at large, and he clasps Bilbo’s shoulder with a much too strong hand. "Welcome, Mr Baggins, to the Company."

Bilbo looked at the contents of the room. He looked each of the new men in the eyes. When there was nowhere else left to look, he looked up at the blue-eyed tower.

A paper cup would have burst open in his white-knuckled hands. His mug did not. His mug did not do many things, regardless of how he willed it to magically teleport him somewhere else. He gave his new employer a polite smile.

"I don’t mean to be a bother," Bilbo said, latching on to the only thing he was certain of, "but I think I’ll need another coffee first."

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the beginning notes, I'm finished working on this fic, so if there's anyone who wants to take it and run with it, cool, just let me know.


End file.
